Data Destruction Tour 2005
Hypothetically, if you were to set out on a tour of the US on which you played the greatest music to ever come out of a GameBoy, NES, or Atari, could you come up with a better title than DATA DESTRUCTION TOUR 2005? No.
A friend and I went to the final show on this tour in Brooklyn USA. The venue was a garage that had been labeled a gallery and called vertexList in trendy Williamsburg. vertexList is actually a pretty cool venue in that it provides a certain intimacy between the performer and the audience, which provided for much schmoozing between sets. The performers were all really cool guys, and since 8bit is a sort of niche genre, they haven't blown up the the point of unnapproachability. The net result of that is my friend's schoolgirl crush on Bit Shifter.
The opening act was Mark DeNardo from New York City. His set was comprised of songs with an 8bit rhythm, but melody on guitar with vocals. He was, unfortunately, plagued technical problems. When he sang his ode to Street Fighter unamplified, I could only make out that Chun-Li was his "little China girl" out of all the lyrics. The allusion was lost on some of the hipster attendees only for lack of volume, hopefully. Mark DeNardo's homepage does not feature any free downloads, but the flash-plagued "omac"section features some streaming songs. However, omac provides neither authorship information for the songs, nor a definition of "omac".
Next on the bill was Glomag, also from New York City. He focused on the game consoles during his set, instead of just using them for rhythm. He also used a Kaos Pad and to great effect on his vocals. "Bad Therapy", his opening song, had a great vocal track, whose effects worked with the haunting rhythm section to produce a chorus reminiscent of Radiohead's "Idiotheque," except fuller, darker, and better enunciated. "Garbage In", another song in his set, is similar to "Bad Therapy" in its tone. It too, either by virtue of the industrial sort of sound or the quality of Glomag's voice, is a definite Nine Inch Nails flashback. While not really as angst-y as "Bad Therapy" it is dark, but the audience understood that Glomag's catalog is not really light. However, as he had no sound check before his set, the vocals were far less intelligible live than on recording. "Ich Und Die Wirklichkeit" (Reality and I) was the only other song of his whose name or lyric I could remember. The whole feel during his set was kind of low energy. On the whole he is pretty low key. Everyone was sitting on the floor like some sort of post modern Woodstock run by robots. Glomag's homepage is flash based and thus loses usability points. However, I found with some legit snooping that all of his downloads, including some that he doesn't advertise, are available here. The Internet Archive has the contents of his album "Naught" here. [This picture is honestly the best I could find. --perko.]
Huoratron from Finland started his set by yelling out "This is music from the lands of Santa Claus!" over the beginning of one of his house numbers. His set was a long mix of dance songs that had the whole crowd rocking out, especially two brothers (I think); they faked a street fighter match. Huoratron's style is sort of house/dance; his songs don't really have beginning, middle and end. His set list was a number of songs that do not lend themselves to direct linking, so I won't even bother trying. He does offer "Male Bonding" but it is really sub-par, not at all indicative of his better work; some of the tracks sound out of synch in a not artsy way. The section that offers streaming clips of his songs has them in the order of his set list at Ekko Festival 2004, which is strikingly similar to his set list at Data Destruction Tour 2005. The clips can be found by clicking the ".GET" and then ".MP3" buttons on his site. I'm also kind of mad that he drew an illicit grafito on my tour poster by way of autograph, when I inteded to give it to someone.
The headline acts were a real shift from the previous three. Not to disparage on the effort of the first three acts, but Covox and Bitshifter absolutely took the house down. Bitshifter did a set of short numbers, i.e. songs rather than dance a dance mix. Most of his material was from a new, as yet unreleased album, as of yet unannounced on his website. My friend was very taken with his to the point of schoolgirl crush. The whole set hand the crowd balls to the wall dancing. Call it a hipster rave. The only track that I recognized was "Science City Zero", which, I have to say, is not my favorite. His homepage offers a few downloads. My personal favorite is "March of the Nucleotides", but there are only three choices anyway.
Covox of Stockholm took the stage next with what I though was the best set of the night. He had GameBoys and a classic Nintedo Entertainment System and a vocal sequencer. Since singing does not usually feature heavily in 8bit (particularly not in his work), no on knew what the microphone was for. That changed when, with one excellent cross-fade he went from a dance track to an 8bit version of the melody from Usher's "Yeah!" His sequenced, digital "yeah" provided Lil' Jon's punctuation. Then he mixed it back into the dance mix to brilliant effect. I almost C-walked to the music I was so happy. There is nothing to get hipsters dancing like electronic versions of rap music and plenty of irony, and that just brought the house down. Covox's homepage is kind of skimpy on info and design. Still, he does tantalize with the promise of a new album in the near future. My favorite of the downloads is without a doubt "The Sun was Shining", even though the intro is a little unpromising. However, the page for Little Sound DJ (the GameBoy cartridge that makes this all possible) offers "Dubslide", my favorite of all of his works.
Nullsleep (NYC), my favorite of all the 8bit artists going into this, was shut down by the Five-Oh in the middle of his second song. He still gets rocking bonus points for having a necklace with the center of a floppy-disk on it, plus a NASA t-shirt to advertise his love aerospace. His homepage awesomely offers a huge selection of downloads. Unfortunately, all of them are in .zip archives, so if you live in the stone-age you can't listen to them. My favorite song is "Her Lazer Light Eyes", one of two mp3s available here (also available as a zipped mp3, in case he gets rid of the raw mp3).
Link to Data Destruction Tour 2005
A friend and I went to the final show on this tour in Brooklyn USA. The venue was a garage that had been labeled a gallery and called vertexList in trendy Williamsburg. vertexList is actually a pretty cool venue in that it provides a certain intimacy between the performer and the audience, which provided for much schmoozing between sets. The performers were all really cool guys, and since 8bit is a sort of niche genre, they haven't blown up the the point of unnapproachability. The net result of that is my friend's schoolgirl crush on Bit Shifter.
The opening act was Mark DeNardo from New York City. His set was comprised of songs with an 8bit rhythm, but melody on guitar with vocals. He was, unfortunately, plagued technical problems. When he sang his ode to Street Fighter unamplified, I could only make out that Chun-Li was his "little China girl" out of all the lyrics. The allusion was lost on some of the hipster attendees only for lack of volume, hopefully. Mark DeNardo's homepage does not feature any free downloads, but the flash-plagued "omac"section features some streaming songs. However, omac provides neither authorship information for the songs, nor a definition of "omac".
Next on the bill was Glomag, also from New York City. He focused on the game consoles during his set, instead of just using them for rhythm. He also used a Kaos Pad and to great effect on his vocals. "Bad Therapy", his opening song, had a great vocal track, whose effects worked with the haunting rhythm section to produce a chorus reminiscent of Radiohead's "Idiotheque," except fuller, darker, and better enunciated. "Garbage In", another song in his set, is similar to "Bad Therapy" in its tone. It too, either by virtue of the industrial sort of sound or the quality of Glomag's voice, is a definite Nine Inch Nails flashback. While not really as angst-y as "Bad Therapy" it is dark, but the audience understood that Glomag's catalog is not really light. However, as he had no sound check before his set, the vocals were far less intelligible live than on recording. "Ich Und Die Wirklichkeit" (Reality and I) was the only other song of his whose name or lyric I could remember. The whole feel during his set was kind of low energy. On the whole he is pretty low key. Everyone was sitting on the floor like some sort of post modern Woodstock run by robots. Glomag's homepage is flash based and thus loses usability points. However, I found with some legit snooping that all of his downloads, including some that he doesn't advertise, are available here. The Internet Archive has the contents of his album "Naught" here. [This picture is honestly the best I could find. --perko.]
Huoratron from Finland started his set by yelling out "This is music from the lands of Santa Claus!" over the beginning of one of his house numbers. His set was a long mix of dance songs that had the whole crowd rocking out, especially two brothers (I think); they faked a street fighter match. Huoratron's style is sort of house/dance; his songs don't really have beginning, middle and end. His set list was a number of songs that do not lend themselves to direct linking, so I won't even bother trying. He does offer "Male Bonding" but it is really sub-par, not at all indicative of his better work; some of the tracks sound out of synch in a not artsy way. The section that offers streaming clips of his songs has them in the order of his set list at Ekko Festival 2004, which is strikingly similar to his set list at Data Destruction Tour 2005. The clips can be found by clicking the ".GET" and then ".MP3" buttons on his site. I'm also kind of mad that he drew an illicit grafito on my tour poster by way of autograph, when I inteded to give it to someone.
The headline acts were a real shift from the previous three. Not to disparage on the effort of the first three acts, but Covox and Bitshifter absolutely took the house down. Bitshifter did a set of short numbers, i.e. songs rather than dance a dance mix. Most of his material was from a new, as yet unreleased album, as of yet unannounced on his website. My friend was very taken with his to the point of schoolgirl crush. The whole set hand the crowd balls to the wall dancing. Call it a hipster rave. The only track that I recognized was "Science City Zero", which, I have to say, is not my favorite. His homepage offers a few downloads. My personal favorite is "March of the Nucleotides", but there are only three choices anyway.
Covox of Stockholm took the stage next with what I though was the best set of the night. He had GameBoys and a classic Nintedo Entertainment System and a vocal sequencer. Since singing does not usually feature heavily in 8bit (particularly not in his work), no on knew what the microphone was for. That changed when, with one excellent cross-fade he went from a dance track to an 8bit version of the melody from Usher's "Yeah!" His sequenced, digital "yeah" provided Lil' Jon's punctuation. Then he mixed it back into the dance mix to brilliant effect. I almost C-walked to the music I was so happy. There is nothing to get hipsters dancing like electronic versions of rap music and plenty of irony, and that just brought the house down. Covox's homepage is kind of skimpy on info and design. Still, he does tantalize with the promise of a new album in the near future. My favorite of the downloads is without a doubt "The Sun was Shining", even though the intro is a little unpromising. However, the page for Little Sound DJ (the GameBoy cartridge that makes this all possible) offers "Dubslide", my favorite of all of his works.
Nullsleep (NYC), my favorite of all the 8bit artists going into this, was shut down by the Five-Oh in the middle of his second song. He still gets rocking bonus points for having a necklace with the center of a floppy-disk on it, plus a NASA t-shirt to advertise his love aerospace. His homepage awesomely offers a huge selection of downloads. Unfortunately, all of them are in .zip archives, so if you live in the stone-age you can't listen to them. My favorite song is "Her Lazer Light Eyes", one of two mp3s available here (also available as a zipped mp3, in case he gets rid of the raw mp3).
Link to Data Destruction Tour 2005
posted by Perko at 4:17 PM
1 Comments:
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